After discovering mushroom plants growing in his yard, Bill Hickman consumed four of them. Tammy quickly realized something was amiss when Bill continued vomiting for hours afterward – evidence of poisonousness revealed by poison control workers who stated one mushroom contains enough toxins to kill a person and that Bill wasn’t simply suffering food poisoning as usual; in fact he vomited all night long!

He was taken to a hospital, where doctors informed him that had it not been for his liver transplant within hours, he likely would have perished. Today he remains stable. “It truly was a miracle,” says his wife.

Mushroom-patterned decor ranges from tea towels to toddler sweaters, yet foraging for them can be hazardous. In just the first 10 months of 2023, America’s Poison Centers received over 7,250 calls about potential mushroom poisoning cases – an 11% increase from all of 2022!

Last year, Wunderground Coffee of Seattle and Puff Coffee of Portland joined forces to produce Mushroom Lovers Unite, an original beverage using a trade-secret process to extract chitin from lion’s mane fungi – which are legal in Oregon and Washington – into an all-natural beverage that does not cause hallucinations but may cause anxiety and nausea for some individuals.